Direct Experience: Understanding Asana

Direct Experience: Discovery Through Immediate Sense Perception

When Confucius said, “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand,” he was describing the value of direct experience. Direct experience is the most effective way to deeply understand something. What is direct experience?

Someone can tell me how to ride a bike. I can watch someone ride a bike. But it is only when I get on a bike and pedal that I truly understand how to ride a bike. Until we’ve had a direct experience of something, our knowing is theoretical and our doing is imitation.

In terms of asana (yoga postures), direct experience is what happens when I am no longer thinking about what I am doing but, instead, am feeling my way through it. I become aware of my physical relationship to the space around me, the earth beneath me and the shape my body parts are making. I become aware of my body experientially - awareness of the body through the body as opposed to awareness of the body through the mind.

One of the first times I had a direct experience was in a yoga class. I remember that a sense of awe came over me. The teacher was not giving much instruction and I could feel what my body “wanted” to do. It wasn’t something I was thinking about and then executing consciously. I was following what felt like requests from my body, without any thought or evaluation; without mental will being actively involved. 

When I was no longer simply following my teacher’s verbal direction and/or imitating her movements, I was able to “hear” my body; I was able to follow its instruction. This is direct experience, in the context of asana and, for me, it was the prerequisite to becoming more deeply aware of my unique - and shifting - physiological habits and capacities. Through direct experience I was able to feel my way through postures, finding greater ease and discovering new and more effective ways of moving my body into and out of the different shapes that we call yoga postures. 

The magic of yoga is in what happens as we are able to drop into a direct experience of the postures.

Do you give yourself and your students quiet moments in class so that they can discover the magic of direct experience? 

Monkey Mind: Stillness As Antidote

Monkey Mind: An Ayurvedic Perspective on Stilling our Busy Minds

The Monkey Mind is a Buddhist concept that describes the highly mobile quality of our mental landscape. It alludes to the monkey-like quality of a mind that jumps from thought to thought, just as a monkey leaps from branch to branch; only letting go of one as it grabs onto another. 

In Part 1 of this exploration titled, Awareness: Doorway to a Better Life (see preceding article), we looked at the relationship between awareness and our monkey mind. We saw that, until the monkey mind is quieted, cultivating awareness of ourselves and the world around us proves challenging. 

How can I quiet or still the restless monkey mind?

Ayurvedic scholars identified 20 Gunas or Qualities that are found in nature and the human physiology and psychology. These qualities are generally presented and studied as 10 pairs of opposites. 

Mobile and Stable (also called Static) compose one of the pairs. 

The monkey mind quality of our mental landscape is, in Ayurvedic terms, a manifestation of the mobile principle (in an aggravated state). Hyper-mobility of the mind - and its various side effects, such as anxiety, agitation, restlessness, indecision and, in the extreme, insomnia - is one of the most well-known afflictions in Ayurveda. As such, Ayurveda has a number of recommendations for taming the monkey mind and reducing the incidence of anxiety and other common symptoms of excessive mobility.  

One of the two fundamental principles of Ayurveda is, Like Increases Like.

This means that, when we already have a lot of certain quality - either naturally occurring in our physiology and psychology or acquired through lifestyle choices - we don’t want more of that quality. 

The monkey mind is exacerbated by a lifestyle of constant stimulation, multi-tasking, inadequate physical and mental rest; some foods can also increase the mobile quality in our minds.

The second of the two fundamental principles of Ayurveda is Opposites Decrease Each Other. 

This means that, when introduce stillness and stability into our lives, we reduce the mobile quality in our psychophysiology, thus quieting the monkey mind. 

Whether we use mediation (of which there are many types), Tai Chi or Yin, Restorative or slow Hatha Yoga, when we spend more time moving slowly - or remain in complete stillness - the activity of the monkey mind is reduced by the introduction of its opposite. 

Are you ready to make a commitment to stillness to quiet your monkey mind?

Awareness: Doorway to a Better Life

Awareness: Why is it so Challenging to Cultivate?

Awareness is a word we hear often these days. In yoga class, we talk about awareness of the breath and the body. Some teachers also encourage awareness of thought or mental processes, as well as emotions. In Ayurveda, awareness is cited as the number one prerequisite for maintaining health. If we know that awareness is the essential starting point for a healthier body and mind and a richer experience of life, why is it still so hard to put this knowledge into action? Monkey Mind.

The Buddhist perspective attempts to answer this question by using a metaphor called Monkey Mind (or Mind Monkey). It describes the active nature of the human mind as being like the restless behaviour of a monkey. Just as the monkey lets go of one vine only to grasp onto the next, so our minds ceaselessly jump from thought to thought. 

This constant state of distraction makes it extremely difficult to focus on our present-centred experience, including our breath, bodily sensation, emotions and what’s happening around us. Often we are not even aware of the thoughts that are distracting us; they are so varied and come and go so quickly that our mental experience is a non-stop, inner prattling on.

So, the question becomes: if it is incessant mental distraction that inhibits awareness, how can I be free of mental distractions?

Like any skill, becoming more aware of ourselves and the world around us requires practice. The first step is to find out how we can reduce the mental chatter that distracts us from present-centred awareness. But imagine trying to teach a monkey to sit still without plying it with food or another shiny reward. This is the challenge we face when trying to still the mind; or to uncover the already-still mind beneath the surface waves of incessant chatter.

The good news is, unlike the monkey, there is a reward for us in this practice. A still mind is a mind that is free, however briefly, from anxiety and myriad other unpleasant side effects of the untamed Monkey Mind.

So if awareness is the prerequisite for a healthier life, freer from anxiety - and a still mind is the prerequisite for awareness - are you ready, now, to make time to still your mind?

Stay tuned for Part 2 - Taming the Monkey Mind with Meditation - to learn more.